Cricket flour in your bread and soup, Europe allows it

Dutch Cricket Farm is written in large letters on a shed in Barneveld. Inside you immediately expect to see insects, but the warehouse looks more like a department store full of shelves. The racks contain green containers with a small round window. Only when you look through the window do you see crickets crawling around.

“It is a closed cultivation system developed by a Finnish company”, owner Koos van Hamersveld explains. “From the water system to the power supply system, everything is controlled automatically. So you hardly have to worry about it.”

The breeding process starts with the eggs of adult mother crickets. The tiny crickets that hatch from the eggs are called pinheads. “They go from the nursery to the fully automatic cultivation unit and are finally harvested after about 35 days and immediately frozen,” he says.

Van Hamersveld learned the art of cricket cultivation in Finland at EntoCube, a company that was founded in 2014. Working together in the cricket business is quite normal, says de Barnevelder. “You shouldn’t try to break open this market on your own. In the Netherlands there are about ten companies that have the same cultivation system and the same protocols. They all started small and work together.”

Breeding crickets is not that complex. Finding customers is. For example, Lidl, Jumbo and Albert Heijn sold products with insects, but because the demand was not big enough, they disappeared from the shelves again.

Processed in bread and biscuits

“The market here has yet to be completely opened up. Especially when it comes to complete insects, seasoned or not, the Dutch don’t start. What the farmer doesn’t know, he won’t eat. But I do think there is a market for crickets in powder form, which can be processed in all kinds of food products such as bread, pasta and biscuits,” says Van Hamersveld.

“And once the first step has been taken by eating powdered insects, the next step will come naturally in the long term.”

European rules

The European Union has formally allowed the commercial use of insects since 2022, although some European countries, including the Netherlands, have allowed the sale before. Insects fall under the Novel Food Regulation in Europe. Consent must be given for each type and processing. In 2022, permission was given for the migratory locust, the yellow mealworm, the house cricket and the larvae of the grain fungus beetle.

In January 2023 added degreased powder of house crickets.

Cookbook full of insect recipes

In 2012 Arnold van Huis, emeritus professor of tropical entomology at Wageningen University and Marcel Dicke The Insect Cookbook out, full of recipes. He has devoted his entire life to studying insects. “Describing the taste of crickets or mealworms? That is difficult. They are flavors in themselves,” says Van Huis.

“You have to do something with it. Meat without spices has no taste either. Although locusts and crickets do have more flavor of their own than mealworms. How high the nutritional value is? Hard to say. It depends on various factors. The production method, the food the insects have been given, the amount of light in the breeding process, the time of harvest, and so on.”

Insects are now mainly grown as animal feed, says Van Huis. “That is taking off pretty quickly. As human food, it is still lagging behind in Europe. When it comes to food, we are quite conservative. But I do think that consumer sales will also increase, especially now that more and more insect products and their processing operations are approved.”

‘Objections are between the ears’

Only 20 to 25 percent of Europeans have no problem eating insects, says Van Huis. According to him, the objections are purely between the ears. It has nothing to do with nutritional value or safety.

“Allergic reactions can be a problem. Insects, like shrimp, are arthropods and their allergy-inducing proteins are very similar. That is why it should always be on the label if something contains insects, even if it is powder.”

Both Van Huis and his colleague Marcel Dicke, co-author of Het Insectenkookboek, regularly eat insects. “Not only are they a rich source of protein, but they are also very rich in zinc, which is an important mineral for your health. If you have a deficiency, you can get all kinds of problems, such as a poorly functioning immune system,” says Dicke.

Better for the environment

Pork is much less rich in zinc. “But it’s not just about health benefits. It’s also about the environment. To breed insects you need much less space and they emit much less greenhouse gas. Moreover, less water is needed and you can grow them on residual flows from food production.” The ecological footprint of insects is therefore much smaller than that of pork and beef.

There are 2,000 species of insects that are eaten worldwide, says Dicke. “In China, Colombia and Kenya I feasted on deliciously prepared insects. We were raised in Europe with the idea that you don’t eat them.”

According to Dicke, that is also the reason why insects in Europe fall under the Novel Food Regulation. “It is completely safe, billions of people eat it worldwide. There is nothing strange about it. But it is unknown, so Europe has set the bar high. But we are making progress. In 2014, a member of the European Commission stated that she would never consent.”

Slow trajectory

That permission is now there, but it is slow. Separate permission must be requested from EFSA (the European Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority) for each insect species and processing. Manufacturers must therefore make a proposal for the dosage in the product.

The EFSA then examines whether the proposed conditions of use and doses are safe for the consumer, after which the European Commission decides whether to approve the product or not.

The approval process costs hundreds of thousands of euros

Van Huis: “It takes a few years before approval from EFSA and the European Commission is obtained. And such a process costs companies hundreds of thousands of euros. All kinds of tests are needed. You know that it is absolutely safe, even if they may speed up the process of mine.”

Insects are now often ground into pet food. But it makes much more sense as a consumer to eat insects directly, he says. “Better than first feeding those insects to a chicken and then eating the chicken. Moreover, you can eat an insect completely, especially when it is still a larva. With a chicken or pig, you throw half of it away.”

Hundreds of millions of people worldwide eat insects, according to the World Agriculture Organization. In the Netherlands that is less than one percent, Van Huis estimates. “Most insect powder now goes to pets, such as dogs and cats, 17 percent to fish food, and less than 10 percent goes to consumer food.”